The Bayville BoneClaw Massacre
by Mike-the-Coolperson
Summary: On one hand we have people dying. On the other we have people trying not to die (it's harder than it looks); think your favourite character wont get turned into cat food? There's one way to find out. R&R. Updated.
1. Part One

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. This fic has a rating. R&R.

* * *

**.:The Bayville Bone-Claw Massacre:.******

Part One

Walking alone down a street where raindrops skip off cement; struck to pallid luminosity under its liquid sheen in the scant light. There is no small amount of rain. This is a storm; the kind that's built up for days and threatens to last as long itself. Clouds cast a certain shadow that makes dusk seem like night, and a cold wind howls between buildings in the narrow street as it sweeps the rain along with it in lashing arcs.

It's hard to believe in good weather during a storm like this one. It's easy to forget, to acclimatize, to not move forward, and neither to regress but simply be, in state, neither accepting nor tolerant, yet at once both without thinking. It is easiest to deal with but not to dwell on a condition; to commit yourself to matters of prevention so as to create a static means of coping and by way of this to eliminate it as a factor. For those so equipped then any condition - however intransient - ceases to be in the waking mind. Through such slothful short-sightedness much is left ill-considered where heavy thought is due and much is not dealt with in any ongoing manner, nor dwelt on. So ran one's internal monologue, albeit, in terms far removed. In a simplified and inarticulate fashion whereby only a notion in its heated self is born; made of no words or thoughts which can be traded at the second hand. It is in its most basic state a feeling or an intuition that while calamity and hatred can quickly be forgotten that they, when coming from the past, can easily inject a reminder into those who have grown accustomed to their absence, and thereby give rise to old habits.

There was a definite odour left untainted by the rain, and it ran its presence cursively over the nerves like a bow. X-23 was understandably afraid. Her already timid gait slowed and then stopped. Eyes flickered toward the unwholesome and uninviting bleakness of a shadowy alleyway which ran perpendicular to her path. Roberto, Jamie, all the others; they were nowhere in sight. She could not pick up their scent, and the young mutant took faltering steps backwards as a sudden, irrational panic took possession of her. She smelled something bad. It was only sensible to now avoid such a pitfall as this. The alley seemed to brood with an intent of its own by way of the imagination conforming to certain fear-driven expectations.

Her mind dashed, contemplating the figurative at pace, her heartbeat rising to a sprint. There was a startling jump in the state of her panic, and transcendent relief following. Someone lurched out of the uninviting maw, a vagrant of some ragged description who appeared not to mirror the earlier smells or portents in any fashion save by way of a certain unpleasant reek, not wholly taken care of by the still pelting rain. He loped off with a damp newspaper blanketing his head impotently against the storm and swore, spitting as he made off toward some better sheltered haven. The young mutant then took a calm breath without thinking and this was a good sign of tension passing. Five steps carried her half-way across the no-longer fearsome mouth of that same alley where curiosity made her head turn. All this won her was the right to a sudden, unbelievable jolt of consummate shock. The sight came first; a roaring, lunging shadow of some unnameable hulk. Then a jolt, and all her body felt as though it had been lightly struck as everything tensed and the heart leapt with such sudden potency of condition that it was overwhelming. An involuntary shudder would dismiss the sudden freezing of motion, but in those circumstances survival was, perhaps, an all-too lofty goal.

Dizziness and the disorientating swirl of ground and sky filled her vision in the tumbling press of violent contact. Something pushed insistently against the skin of her shoulder and arms and popped its surface in dashes suddenly bereft of feeling. She knew the ugly smell of another person's hot breath as pain lanced through her arms in spite of her body's need to cheat it. Something wet struck her face, hard, or her skull had slammed into something. In the confusing press it was impossible to tell. Whatever it was gave way. Her assailant had - in one great motion - carried the lunge from the sidewalk to a parked car, and her head went through its window. It cracked and it shattered; leaving only the knowledge of an impossibly painful sense of force against the skull having been survived, and she only understood the occurrence after she beat the falling glass to the pavement and it fell about her with the rain.

She would have gotten up now had something not then struck her face. This time it was no frenzied motion, but she realised a smoothness and sense of measured ferocity in the two massive hands rushing toward her, and then her vision was blacked out. She knew pressure and harm as something filthy pressed harshly against her eyes, piercing them, and bearing inward in an incised fashion that chilled her spine.

Thumbs, ending in claws, buried themselves deeply now within the soggy warmth of tissue beyond her eye-sockets, and howling its victorious exhalations her attacker began to lift and rail her head with numbing speed and force against the concrete. Consistent in pace, metered like the beat of a song, rising and falling over and over again until the skin on the back of her head was paste in her hair, and she felt the grating of her bare skull against the jagged concrete. Blood pissed down over her cheeks. Her arms flailed weakly, and in vain. Now hot breath filled her face - her only indication of proximity - and she felt wetness beyond that of the pouring rain. Several things like pointed, conical glass, dull at the edges, piercing her skin at angles from two opposing points; driven by crushing weight and force. She was sure she would survive. It was very hard for her to die, after all. But she did not think beyond that. This was an experience that was, at its core, unbearable and intolerable, but inescapable and so it forced one into abject acceptance. A rag-doll state where submission might equate to survival; where survival was the only consideration, and condition was no longer a concern.

She felt it had been longer than it had been, and though her eyes were useless - her lids unspoken for save by their dictations of pain - she made to squeeze them shut. She could not see to understand; there was no 'shut' and there was no 'open' for two things so utterly ruined. It gave her some comfort though. The pressure became more and she was aware of a gross sense of disorientation and above all, a complete, unalterable sense of wrongness. She kicked her legs in frenzied resistance now, and her arms spun wildly. Claws raked with abandon and her legs flailed further with such panicked intent that her heels hurt from drumming so harshly against the floor. Twisting and fighting wildly but unable to rid herself of this knowledge, this sense of being broken in condition, she was chilled over a thought: something she could no longer feel had been ruined. She knew it was; that many things were. These things no longer a part of her in their current state; having become only flaccid, hanging pieces attached by some neutral and unfeeling strand.

The assailant reared back from her, and she knew this only from the reduction of weight bearing her back. She heard, or in the blurred thing which for her now passed for hearing - drowned out by the chorus of her heart pounding on resolutely like a steam-hammer in her ears - a spit, and the splatter of something slapping the wet ground.

Her struggles ceased to be but continued in a fitful sense, and they could only be called convulsions now. Her entire body in spasms; as if trying to rid her desperately coiled muscles of their last strength before giving up. Piercing screams became a throaty noise - a wet, gurgling sound - and at last a whimpering of sorts, something which echoed a certain dampness, loss, pain, and a sense of relief. Everything slowed down with this sound.

Now the epigone had ceased to be, and she lay still on the sidewalk. Her limbs were splayed in an awkward fashion, and she no longer had a face to speak of save for the shreds of blood-sodden flesh and muscle which hung hinged and flapping timidly with each indelicate twitch of her body. There was a cavity of sorts there, in her skull, where her jaw hung askew; and her lips were torn, dangling, shredded, pulled and twisted into a macabre, permanently inhuman expression; a gaping hole in her palette where gums were thrust back and teeth shorn from their place. Something like scarlet jelly was being washed clean of blood; draped on the lips of this jagged maw and pelted by the rain as it sat now, quivering as each drop struck it where it lay on the pavement. The scene was eerily bloodless; as this was washed efficaciously from her body and fled along the gutter now, down a drain. X-23 was not regenerating.

* * *

'"The sin of pride!"' Words echoed from the stereo in the rec-room. It was late and Logan did not sit well with CDs, but through boredom and worry he had put on the radio in an attempt to displace his thoughts. 'The devil cried, "is what will do you in,"'

'Huh,' he intoned in a gruff manner which allowed him to seem both angry, amused and insulted all at once. The radio didn't seem to mind. 'Johnny did you ever know that time keeps marching on, the coldest hour is the one-' Logan turned it off. He thought to get a drink, but the idea receded. To tell the truth; Logan was fuming. Typically, he'd stewed with worry over some of the students heading out to the movies so late, and the resulting issues had turned that worry into a sort of outraged paternal wrath. They'd all come back swearing she'd been with them the whole time. Nobody could account for X-23's absence, despite his furious attempts to grill the information out of the returning students. Jean, Scott and Ororo had each gone out looking for her, but Xavier had discouraged going out on his bike in such filthy weather when there were so many other volunteers. He'd been fine with that then, then it had been different. Then Cerebro, Xavier's telepathy, even Jeannie, they all had their means. Then was good. Open and shut. It was different now.

Logan got up with these thoughts stewing over: he wasn't going to fuck around, sitting here, scratching his balls all night just because someone had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth and nobody could find her. He started off.

He planned to avoid Hank and Chuck; who believed there had been some malfunction in Cerebro; a technical error which explained X-23's apparent disappearance during what had been such an innocent and harmless sojourn. They were too busy to notice him and wouldn't have noticed him anyway even if he palmed their keys and left 'claw me' signs on their backs. Or so he thought as he made his way toward the foyer and, absorbed in thought as he was, almost head-first into another.

'Th' fuck!' and a screwed up look was all Logan came out with upon almost walking into Ororo. The stocky feral took a disconcerted step back as he regarded the tall woman. She looked worried.

'Charming,' she remarked, in an almost off-hand style.

'S'-' Logan started.

'I was just looking for you,' she explained, her voice running over his in a haughty fashion. She spoke with that composed tone he'd come to understand, but at a pace which inferred that she was after him for more than just a friendly chat. 'Charles is-' the woman paused here to find the correct words; as if wishing she could go back on the last two. Logan took it as an invitation.

'Sorry there, 'Ro. Was I interuptin' ya?' he grunted; his ironic tones as subtle as nuclear war. 'Fu-'

'Logan! This is very important!' she ran over his comment. Logan exhaled and squared his shoulders at this. 'The Professor...' she went on, but Logan wasn't listening. He opened his mouth to voice certain unpleasant terms about frustrating things when Charles rolled in behind Ororo, who faded back from the doorway as the Professor regarded them both.

'There really isn't time for this,' he said; his expression one of concern - even fear - and intent. The man communicated so much of his position through himself, not with his powers, but with precise tones and certain looks. Through this and the few words he'd already intoned Logan was made better aware of the gravity of the situation. 'Right,' he grunted; prepared to consent to any request.

'Come with me.' Xavier turned with this. Logan was aware of Storm's eyes following him out of the foyer as he went on at Xavier's side. 'I'll explain as we go.' Logan looked back on hearing this to see Ororo's gaze following Xavier and he out the door until she gently pushed it closed behind them. After turning, slowly, she leant back against the now closed doors and took a few deep breaths. It was going to be a long night, there was no doubt about that. The storm outside had been a long time coming and it was, at last, hurling its collective force at everything beneath it. Sheets of rain, howling wind, thunder so vivid you could feel it, streaks of lighting lashing downward like burning strands of phosphorous; turning night to day. All this as Xavier and Logan pulled out of the institute. It was certainly a fitting atmosphere.

* * *

In the rec-room, passing the time, Storm's gaze fixed on the television, but she paid little mind and watched with only half-hearted interest as some character took to repose. The only light in the room was the screen pulsing intermittently from within the shadows. 'When will the clouds be weary of fleeting?' the character mused. Storm stood up and turned to leave. 'When will the heart be weary of beating...' she did not stop to listen.

* * *

She'd checked every room, and all the students were there. Avidly she wished Hank would quicken his pace. He and Xavier had, in their attempts to repair something which worked fine, effected certain changes to Cerebro. Hank was still ardently working on reordering the device so that it would work normally again. There was absolutely no point in trying to sleep, she knew this much. Even if she could have slept it was- Storm's head turned a few times in search of the hour before she realised there was no clock in her loft. Just greenery. It could have been a pleasant night here; with the rain drumming heavily and soothingly against the panelled glass. The intermittent bursts of lighting bathing the grounds in evanescent light.

* * *

It was only when Hank returned that Ororo realised, after a fifteen minute spell sitting in the rec-room without a single word exchanged, that sharing misery could only compound it. They each felt it after their own fashion, and they each knew the others at the second hand, incommunicable, but translated into despondent hints by proximity alone.

Hank eventually broke this morose silence.

'Sunrise,' he remarked. Nodding toward the window.

'I see,' Storm said.

'They'll be getting up soon. I think it wont be so bad when everyone knows-' she raised an eyebrow at this. 'I mean, the waiting. It's hardly pleasant.' he finished quickly.

'I don't think they'll take it well,'

'I don't think anyone could-' Hank looked up to see Kitty and paused with this remark. She was all blear and only half-awake; shambling in a sleepy fashion through the rec-room. The young girl eyed her two instructors with unveiled curiosity. Hank did not continue speaking, and Ororo did not seem to mind. They both watched the young girl make her way into the kitchen. Both seemed to restrain disappointment as the distraction left. Spirits lifted a little as the girl came back, a glass of water in one hand. 'What's up?' she asked the two. Her voice had an almost too cheerful quality for such a filthy hour.

'Nothing,' Ororo seemed to choke on this word. If it were possibly for her to do something so inelegant.

'Well,' Hank added.

'Yes, not nothing. Just,' Kitty quirked an eyebrow as Storm reached for the words, it was certainly unusual behaviour. 'I think it would be best if you waited until morning.'

'All right,' Kitty replied with a sense of bemusement, and set to wondering what could have transpired to put such a mood on her instructors as she made her way back to her room. Ororo and Hank exchanged glances with each other through the recrudescent silence. Not long now.

* * *

The sun came up, which was hardly surprising. The admissions and revelations had run their course and now the early morning saw a disheartened group assembled in the large meeting room. Everyone currently at the institute and they were all possessed by some separate languid urge. They were, in state, sprawled or reclining, sporting various negative expressions after having taken so poorly to the news. 'You all understand there will be a strict curfew put in place, as we're not sure whether this is an isolated incident or a part of something larger.' this was Ororo. She addressed the assembled students with a sense of spirit improved since twilight, but perhaps only put on for their benefit. 'Only until Xavier and Logan return,'

'And they shouldn't be long.' Hank added.

'Yes,' Storm agreed. They voiced more through hope than knowledge however. 'The police who found her have taken her somewhere, the professor isn't sure where but he believes Logan may be able to help through certain contacts...' Ororo went on explaining the situation as Hank addressed the looks of those around him. Several of the newer students, Roberto, Jamie, Rahne, they seemed especially downcast. He realised with suddenness it was by way of the other days trip that this situation came about.

'You shouldn't feel responsible,' he said to them as Ororo's monologue drew to a close. It was met by a chorus of half-hearted nods. Both Ororo and Hank seemed to feel the weight of the situation redoubled in that not one person felt self-concerned enough to voice a protest over the new curfew.

'I still can't see how,' Scott voiced. 'It doesn't make allot of sense. I thought she had Logan's healing factor?' Hank wasn't sure how to respond to this question, nor was his fellow instructor. Neither felt the a blunt admission of details would be fitting.

'It's-' Ororo started.

'-They said,' Hank began at the same time. 'Sorry,' he gestured for her to continue.

'In the way it was done, the person seemed to have some understanding of this. They did it in such a way as to override it,' Ororo finished. Less poignant questions were voiced then and met with answers. The conversation fell to morbidities and details. In time it stopped and the assembled students left Ororo and Hank to their respective devices. Breaking into groups; each seeking to tick away the day in some fashion. With some students more inclined to bounce in the face of tragedy looking to make the most of their scant hours in the face of this new curfew. All talk turned to the future, and these colloquies were concerned with what was to come, and the foreboding atmosphere and present sense of adolescent theatrics pervaded almost everything. Outside it was still raining.

**End of Part One.**


	2. Part Two

Disclaimer: I own nothing. This fic has a rating. R&R.

* * *

.:The Bayville Bone-Claw Massacre:.

Part Two

Now the rain had finally let up a cry could be heard on the grounds. 'No, no, no! I want to live!' a doomed plushie protested with Ray's voice set to a mocking and above all amused pitch. He'd taken it from Kitty's room. Ray shook the inanimate thing a few times before chuckling and throwing it into the pan of the woodchipper. Bits of fluff and fur spat out the funnel. 'Cake,' he intoned. The machine was such a blessing. Even with the stupid curfew in place and everyone moping around and sulking it allowed him to have some serious fun. He tossed a Twinkie in the pan, and in the split second he had to wonder; wondered what would come out the other side. Satan? No, just bits of shredded Twinkie. 'I love this thing,' he went on as his eyes ran over the ground about the rumbling machine. It was late and he couldn't exactly see well, he probably shouldn't have been out, but he was waiting for Rahne and Roberto to come join the fun as they'd said they would. Nobody seemed to mind. Being on the grounds was hardly breaking curfew. Idly he wondered how long it would take for the work to be finished up and the amazing machine removed. Inwardly he hoped he'd have a chance to shred a hell of allot of crap before then.

Ray paced and turned about languidly. He kicked up the earth and threw a few sticks into the pan; there was nothing about more entertaining. 'P-p-pow,' he deadpanned as fucked up shreds of stick were spat out into the air. Where the hell was Roberto? He thought. Heavy hands fell on the lads shoulders then, giving him a fair start.

'Roberto, you-' he turned and realised it sure as fuck wasn't his buddy and it wasn't grappling him in any friendly fashion. 'Oh shi-' he was cut off as in a flash, before he could even consider using his powers, wickedly hard knuckles lashed across his face and left it contused, leaving him too stunned to think. He tried immediately to squirm away but with ease the lanky boy was hauled up off the floor. His feet grappled for purchase and then found something, something hard and cold, slicked with grassy fibres and moisture. Something slippery that his feet and entire body curled back from. The pan of the woodchipper.

'Holy fuck!' he exclaimed in a breathless and panic as claws took purchase roughly about his chest and shoulders leaving bloody streaks beneath the tears they opened in his clothes. Whatever had hold of him drove him forward with irresistible force and laughed uproariously. Ray screamed as the moist teeth tore the shoes and skin from his feet with mechanical efficiency as he whimpered and his toes curled back in revulsion while a sense of terror overcame him. Nevertheless, the teeth continued indefatigably and indiscriminately drawing him inward and chewing his clothes, his bones, his flesh into a fucked up spray of sickeningly insubstantial juice. He could see it being vomited out the other end as he lurched and railed impotently against his attacker with all he had, while fearless desperation commandeered yet more as all his muscles were to put to a frenzied of unalterably intent resistance. In vain. His screams echoed about all the grounds as the machine choked on his legs before erupting again as he was driven on by the murderous shape holding him. Ray's arms jerked up intermittently of their own accord each time he gagged from the pain. He began to bleed out, loosing his senses, as his legs were crushed and ground into shit. Perhaps a minute ago he'd been pissing off idle seconds for a laugh, and now he was too screwed over and numbed with adrenalin and shock to realize he was fucked. He started trembling, his breathing quickened, and he hacked out a series of convoluted sounds as the machine's progressive onslaught slowly killed him.

* * *

Inside the institute Storm came to realize something was awry when she heard the screams. She'd caught Rahne and Roberto heading out and had been addressing the pitfalls of breaking their strict curfew in the foyer when she heard it. 'You two will return to your rooms _at once!_' she so harshly declared that Roberto immediately began backing up. Rahne stood still; she seemed too shocked to move; Ororo turned quickly however and did not notice. She sprinted outside with a surprising turn of speed and followed the sounds. Now the lush grounds of the institute had become an enemy, a thing to hide in and stalk through, something oppressive and shadowy, but she paid little attention to it.

She went on fearlessly through the press of greenery and charged headlong toward the sounds. There was nothing pleasant about them, and they fuelled her sense of outrage as she launched on at a greater pace, and then bursting in on the scene; nothing. Choked up and frozen, lost for words, Ororo stopped and stared open-mouthed at what was arrayed about the woodchipper. Sprayed out from the funnel was a revolting cocktail of churned up clothes and skin and parts, all red, reduced to a runny liquid and blended with mulched greenery; painting the grass and soil. Something was left in the pan being jiggled and turned by the rotating teeth which hacked and faltered whenever it was caught between them; surrounded by unidentifiable, thicker, pasty remains clinging to the walls and roof of the pan by way of their consistency. There were bloody cords and stringy, fleshy fibres hanging limp there, and they fell and trailed to the ground where Ray's torso twitched. Its open eyes were glassy and still, blood trickled from the mouth. The arms were spread palm up on the floor and from where the fibres trailed off he was gone. An angled line from rib-cage on one side to the waist on the other marked his bodies end, and about it the clothes were all torn and stuck to whatever remained beneath, soaked with blood.

The machine rumbled on and spluttered in mechanical defiance of Storm's complete revilement. A sudden transient flash partially lit the scene as billowing clouds, black as pitch, formed overhead and a pallid streak of lighting forked horizontally across the firmament. She laid her eyes then on a retreating figure; something bulky running with an animals grace. 'Stop!' her voice pierced the sound of thunder now quaking across the grounds. It didn't stop. Emotionally charged and angry beyond words she floated upward into the now chaotic sky. From here she saw the figure, keeping low and moving swiftly, heading toward the institute itself. She soared toward it and chewed through the separating distance with the sky raging in her wake. It slipped inside. Storm was too wrathful to consider the sounds inside as she fell upon the entrance; landing gracefully amid the entropy of now pouring rain and howling wind. As she neared the doors they burst open and a figure only back-lit by the lights inside lunged outward. Bulky, feral and animal in its motions. Furious streaks of lighting fell into her hands and from there arced outward as she drove her palms forward and directed it. The entire scene was washed over in piercing brightness and nothing could be seen for a moment, and then it was still. The rain slowed and Ororo listened to its rhythmic patter as the wind abated. The acrid smell of burnt hair curled upward off Rahne's smoking body. Her transitory form was twisted and burnt after having been driven to the earth in a splayed position. She was clearly dead.

* * *

'Get your filthy hands off my donuts!'

'No way, my teenage wife is pregnant. She's eating for two now!'

'I'll clobber you, you minority!'

'Let's dog-pile him! We'll say he had a knife!' it was clear to anyone listening that Jamie and some of his dupes were amusing themselves with a rather stark early morning game of cops and robbers. Having been inspired by the veritable nest of pigs rifling and poking around at the institute after the previous night's events. One of his dupes waved its 'nightstick' menacingly as Roberto plodded into the rec-room in a downcast manner.

'Hey kid!' he called over as the Jamie's all focused on him. 'Dammit, make them quit starin' at me man, it's creepy.' Jamie set off after his fellows to reabsorb them pending this remark. The last one proved rather stubborn and needed to be tackled first, and Jamie fell into a tumble following the motion, crashing into the side of the couch. He shook off the disorientation quickly and looked up at Roberto from the floor, where he now sat. 'Watcha doin'?'

'Gettin' some stuff,' Roberto replied, forcing a smile out.

'Why? What's going on? I saw the police outside, how come 'Oro went with 'em?' Roberto's brow furrowed at this. He did not want to be the one who broke this news to Jamie.

'Ask Hank,' he said at last before picking up several DVDs and other miscellaneous items of his he'd left in the room. Jamie's head listed a little to the right in a curious tilt as his gaze followed Roberto around the room. Eventually the young mutant stood up.

'Going somewhere?' he asked, sauntering around the couch as he spoke.

'Home,' the older student deadpanned as he went around the other side of the couch. It wasn't like he had a choice. When his parents had been informed of not one, not two, but three murders of institute students they'd immediately arranged for him to return for the duration. He wasn't sure if he'd be allowed to come back at all.

Clambering into the couch with immediate interest Jamie knelt on the cushions and peered at Roberto while leaning against the back. 'Finally get bored of loosing at video games?' Jamie questioned archly, a smile crossing his face.

'Naw man-' Roberto started. He immediately stopped when he realised what the little brat had actually said. 'Hey! Dammit, you know that time, my hand, it was all, I'd slept on it and,' he trailed off here to the sound of Jamie laughing. 'You're gonna die!' Roberto menaced in a comical fashion and with sudden playful aggression he lunged at Jamie; leaping over the back of the couch. The boy was quick to react however and slid back off before scampering away toward the kitchen with Roberto in hot pursuit. The two dashed on swiftly and then came to a screeching halt in the kitchen itself when presented with two strangers poking about, one of them making notes. They both realised these could only be police officers. Jamie sauntered in beyond one, the while, casting 'you can't get me' looks at Roberto; who bristled with indignation in the doorway. Putting on his best 'cute little kiddy' face Jamie tugged on the arm of one officers shirt lightly to get his attention. The man peered over from his notebook. 'What is it kid?' he asked.

'You're a cop right?' Jamie asked.

'Yeah,'

'Can I see your gun?' Jamie queried, all puppy-dog eyes. The man screwed up his face a little and wondered why all small children asked this.

'No.'

'Why?'

'It might go off,' it was a cliché, but a good one. Or so the officer thought.

'Oh,' Jamie intoned as his shoulders sagged. 'All cops say that,' he then added with a nod. 'Someone told me it was a very Fer-oy-diy-an-' he made to act as though the word was difficult to pronounce. 'Response, what's that mean?' the officer gave him the sort of look which was often followed by a pat on the head and an invitation to ride the short bus when his partner, who had been listening, began laughing. Jamie widened his eyes innocently as the inference dawned on the man.

'We'll try this one as an adult,' he grunted off in the face of his fellows amusement. Jamie spun his head with this to note that Roberto had gone. He went out after him.

Mischievousness aside he _did_ want to know why the older student was going home. It was only later when the young student learned Roberto wasn't alone in this predicament.

* * *

Rogue, Kurt, Jean, Bobby, Amara, Scott, Sam, Jamie, and Kitty were assembled at Hank's request. Bereaved and fully aware of their thinning numbers. To say the atmosphere was tense would have been a great understatement. Not only had three of their number been inhumed, but Roberto and Jubilee had both gone. For the duration the two would be staying at their home, and these two instances of parental concern were not completely isolated. Jean had only remained in the face of her parents ardent requests because she was of legal age, and did not have to return at their bidding, much to Scott's dismay. Kitty was currently negotiating her position, and trying to somehow convince her worried mother and father that she had to stay. Hank had all but directly asked anyone who could leave to do so, but as loyalty could not be easily won; it could not be simply dismissed. So for the most part their only remaining instructors pleas had fallen on deaf ears. Storm was being billed and charged but on what crime they were not entirely sure at this point, and that was perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow. The mansion was in a state of high security and both Logan and Xavier had been informed of all happenings. Both were unable to return at the time however, despite their willingness. Even adamantium claws, it seemed, could not cut red-tape. Pending a rather lengthy monologue over their current state Hank took a deep breath and warmly regarded those who remained.

'It's not going to continue.' he finished. Often his voice rang with a certain docile quality, and it was why now when he spoke in tones injected with such heart and firmness everyone seemed almost shocked that their oft overlooked instructor could induce such a feeling of security. 'With Cerebro on our side, and now that we know this is definitely a mutant there should be no more surprises-'

'What about Storm!' Kitty interjected with suddenness. It was a question playing on the minds of all present. She hadn't been able to wait and see if Hank would get around to it, the need to know was too intense. Hanks face fell with this comment.

'There isn't much we can do,' he said to the collective dismay of all present. 'But, Scott-' he turned to face the senior X-man. 'If you don't mind heading out to the station to see what the situation is...' his voice wavered a little with this as he trailed off. 'I'd go myself but-'

'It's all right,' Scott put in to spare Hank the effort of explaining something they all already understood. 'I'll go.' silence prevailed here for a time. The students sat, some still, some fidgeting nervously; until eventually Jean stood up.

'I'll start with Cerebro,' she said. Sucking up the fact that she wasn't very good at it and that it wasn't going to be easy, and, pending a moment to wait for any comments toward her, she started for the exit. Scott made as if to speak just as she stepped out the door and then stopped. Hank stood up with this and swept his gaze over the assembled. 'It's been a long day,' he muttered almost to himself. The students took this as an invitation to leave and each started off in their own direction, some shared, and left the room all but empty in a matter of moments.

'Kurt,' Hank observed. The fuzzy mutant turned to face him as he spoke. 'Could you keep an eye on Jean and make sure nothing goes wrong?' the young X-man seemed to perk up with this. It was something to do, at least.

'Message received and understood!' he clipped off in a animated manner. Smiling as he saluted sharply to complete the jest before 'porting out. Scott had the luck to pass through the slowly dispersing cloud of acrid smoke as made his way out of the room. He waved a hand in protest and threw a look to Bobby, who was walking beside him. 'You ever get the feeling he makes that smell intentionally?' Bobby broke a smile at this. His response was inaudible to Hank; who remained still as they passed through the doorway.

* * *

'She was so full of life! And fleas too, but mostly life!' Kurt bemoaned theatrically in regards to the late Rahne Sinclair.

'Kurt!' Jean exclaimed with near-total indignation.

'What!' he shrugged 'I was only joking!'

'Don't you think it's a little insensitive?'

'Just trying to keep moral up.'

'By talking about dead people?' Kurt's sense of whimsy seemed to hit a wall in the face of this irksome logic. Still it completely failed to deter him in any real way.

'Yeah.' he nodded finally. As if it was completely acceptable and normal behaviour. Jean responded to this only by way of fixing him with an odd look. 'C'mon! Lighten up!' Kurt voiced emphatically. _'You're _not dead, you just smell that way,' he threw up his hands with this as Jean shot him a truly foul glare, and took a step back. 'Ok! I'll be quiet!' with this said they both seemed to relax a little. Kurt paced back tentatively toward Jean as she attempted to focus on using Cerebro. Leaning inward intently to try and make sense of the readouts as Jean worked; Kurt thought he could see something.

'What's that?' he quietly asked while two fingers came up to gesture toward something on the display.

'I'm not sure yet,' Jean said. She closed her eyes a moment and opened them to a refreshed sense of determination; setting her jaw as she tried to focus further. 'I think it's what we're looking for-' strain was evident in her voice. '-I'm trying to narrow it down,' Kurt leaned a little closer. 'Dammit!' Jean suddenly exclaimed as she lost track.

'What?' Kurt shot back quickly, stunned a little by the sudden outburst.

'I lost it.' her shoulders fell with this. 'I'm just not advanced enough to-' He struck upon an idea before she finished.

'How far away was it?' he asked, interrupting her.

'I'm not sure, the Marshalling yards, or around there, why?' it seemed to dawn on Jean what Kurt had in mind.

'Close enough!' he announced with a sudden gallant turn in his demeanour, and after taking a single metered step back from her he disappeared.

'Kurt, wait!' Jean's protests came too late and she found herself waving away the acrid smoke of his departure. She stopped for a moment as the smoke dispersed to clear her head and began to think rationally, removing the Cerebro gear. Kurt wasn't gone after all; he was just distant, and for a teleporter and a telepath this was an abstraction and a simple one to overcome. She concentrated for a moment before feeling Kurt's mind and tried delicately to impress an idea upon it.

'Kurt?' She communicated telepathically, and received a positive answer. 'What are you doing?' The communication was a thing of thought and idea; translated into something tangible and comparable to words within their respective minds.

'Just having a look around.' Kurt responded. She could _feel_ him grinning.

'Well be careful, and 'port back at any sign of trouble. I'll tell Hank what we're doing,'

'No!' Kurt seemed harshly opposed to this. 'He'll only worry, right? Let's go to him when we've got the goods,' Jean frowned with thought for a moment over this idea. It did make sense as Kurt could simply teleport back at any sign of trouble. He was in no real danger, yet the idea still made her uneasy.

'All right,' She came back with at length. 'I'll keep working with Cerebro, remember though Kurt, at the first sign of trouble, any sign of trouble, 'port back here right away!' after receiving the mental equivalent of a sarcastic 'yes mother,' Jean's attention returned to Cerebro and she attempted with redoubled vigour to get a bead on both Kurt and their mystery mutant.

* * *

Less than two miles away at the marshalling yards, which were deserted at this hour, Kurt paced carefully between freight carriages and PA stations. It was a desolate and uninviting scene, and he couldn't see much through the darkened alleys stretching out between each row of carriages. He made out distant sounds of further trains coming in, the slow decline of their rattling progression echoing through the otherwise silent yards. He couldn't see anyone, let alone anyone who fitted the vague description Storm had put out. As time went on Kurt progressed through more of the uneven labyrinth of impromptu corridors and alleys, and a feeling of tension mounted in the young X-man. He did not want to go back without something, but he couldn't help feeling as though he was attempting something very dangerous. He ventured between the uninviting alleys for some time, how long he could not have said, until his inspection was cut in a most decisive manner. A most worryingly audible crack sounded from his skull as Kurt was smashed into a fuzzy dream, unconscious, shallow breathing marking life to his attacker. Kurt was dragged roughly away.

End of Part Two.


	3. Part Three

Disclaimer: I own nothing. This fic has a rating. R&R.

* * *

.:The Bayville Bone-Claw Massacre:.

****

Part Three

For Jean, sitting in the Cerebro room, it was like the loss of her own thoughts, or of some strain therein. Kurt was gone. Though she saw him on Cerebro she could not feel him, and there; the other mutant - she was aware of it - but Kurt had not 'ported away. There was no distance between the two. Jean could not reason with the reality of the events that had unfolded. She made no decisive connections and merely sat in a bewildered state for some time. 'It could be another mutant,' this thought she held and it gave her some comfort, but it was not born of any rational process. Jean was, at this point, truthfully too timid through guilt to approach anyone else over this situation. Why hadn't Kurt told them earlier! Concern all turns to anger. 'Oh, god,' Jean put a hand to her forehead. 'I hope he's ok,' perhaps five minutes later and again she probed desperately to recognize some thought of his. Something to tell her it was ok. 'Kurt…' she thought morosely, but as if in answer she knew something. He was awake, and it hurt. She couldn't feel it but she knew it. It was painfully apparent: whoever had knocked him out - it was clear he had been knocked out - hadn't wasted any time making a fucking mess of him. His nerves were _illuminated, _all of them in him and they played out a running chorus of filth; Kurt was choking on it, swimming in it, soon to drown. Jean tried to take something coherent from his thoughts or to make her presence known, but clearly Kurt was not receptive. She felt contact slipping, he was going. 'No,' Jean grasped for it, but it slipped away. Kurt was gone again.

Jean stood up. She had to get help. Nobody could possibly get to him on time, but she didn't care. She was in no state to evaluate the situation so cynically. Taking a step back from the machine while still searching telepathically Jean made contact again and was bowed over by the sense of what she now knew. There was Kurt, and there was something in his face. Jean ran through the shabby excuse for imagery that filtered through Kurt's convulsing thoughts as she attempted to make sense of his situation. Someone was standing over him, Kurt was laying on ice, but Jean probed to greater depths and now, disproving this, it was beyond her to simply feel sick at the revelation. She became sick and felt cold; something stuck in her throat. 'Better to be unconscious,' this was the most intense idea she received from Kurt as applied to his situation. He was giving up. Contact was broken again.

She couldn't be sure how many times Kurt came to and passed out in the following five minutes. Each time he fell away she felt it had been the last, and progressively paced toward the exit; loathe to abandon him in presence, and as foolish as that may have seemed; to her it was vital. Jean couldn't tell what he was going through, but she could guess. Her guess was vivid enough to drain all colour from her face. She felt prickling about her face, something like the foretelling of a sweaty fever, something in her expelled her breath and she pulled desperately at the air; taking one troubled gasp to fill her lungs. She had to get help. Jean impressed one condition upon Kurt whether he could hear her or not, she pleaded and demanded one thing: 'port,' this one word repeated over until it faded as she fled the room. The only sound, her shoes slapping on the hard floor to contrast against the total silence of the lower levels.

* * *

There was gravel stuck in Kurt's cheek. He wanted to curl in on himself and go to sleep. Something vital from within him had been separated and removed and while the pain had not increased, but remained a steady and complete experience, pervasive and mind-numbingly brutal, Kurt could not reconcile with this feeling of having lost something. He was bleeding everywhere, but the most striking sensation he knew was that of dirty gravel sticking out of his cheek and how it stung. He was going to go to sleep and forget about this, but he realized he had something to do first. It would be hard and he did not want to do it. Kurt just wanted to sleep, but this had to be done, if only to be out of the way, and he could sleep. Time would pass and Kurt knew he would soon be cradled amidst things positive and familiar, and then he would be fixed. He would not be laying here looking up through one remaining good eye at a man who was taking his skin off in neat strips; someone working coldly on him like surgeon while he laid prone and helpless; carved like a piece of meat. He did not want to be conscious until he was fixed. Too much was wrong. Something sharp ran along his temple and pressed into his eye from the side; pushing insistently against the soft tissue before gouging it, and he felt himself now bleeding profusely, and it curled down his cheek as Kurt felt the pain of blinking in the protests of his bludgeoned and abused head. That same claw scraped part of his eye away across his cheek bone and his vision could not be relied upon any longer. Kurt was only seeing in blurred flashes. It hurt; throbbing dully. Feeling very cold; Kurt roused himself from the verge of non-recognition and set against this pain and all his draining strength that one last thing he had to do. Kurt closed his eyes when he knew he had ported and he did not care where he was, or who was with him; he couldn't feel much of anything anymore.

* * *

Jean's news had not gone over well, but there had been no dissent intoned. No dissatisfaction in anyone's voice. This was of immense reassurance to her. The simple knowledge that here in this moment of crisis there was nothing to be said of how the situation had come about but rather all thought's had been turned toward finding a solution. It was a thing to take confidence from, but this conversation so far had not been to her liking. Again she forwarded her point 'Hank, you'll need me there,' her voice was calm. There was truth in what she said, but Hank was adamant.

'As much as we might need you out there, we need you more in here, someone needs to guide us' this was Hank's stance and it could not be argued with for lack of solidity. Jean knew she would have to concede to it and did not wish to draw things out. She took one look toward Scott - who had been about to leave to check on storm when he had received her news - but she did not see the disapproval she had worried she might. Standing motionless in the rec room as he was; he did not seem at all impassioned. No anger, nothing, just cold and still. Jean swallowed.

'All right,' she took a step back. 'Keep in contact,'

'We will,' Hank responded. With this he was off. Scott lingered a moment and as Jean made to leave he took her arm in passing. Though she could not see his eyes she knew he had fixed her with such a look; concern and all things related as they ran in pure form. 'It's going to be all right,' he said and she found no words with which to answer this, but as Scott left Jean opened her mouth.

'Good luck,' she intoned. Jean turned and ran. She had to get back to the Cerebro room quickly and had no time to waste dwelling on sentiment. With her athletic qualities it did not take Jean long to get back to the lower levels; passing two students as she went and ignored them; having no time to fill them in. When she reached the doors that once, as a younger student, she had dreaded as a thing which foreshadowed difficult sessions of training; Jean made to pass through. Upon opening they revealed to her something she had never before seen in waking life. No picture, nothing in film, nowhere before had Jean ever seen a body so fucked as to be unrecognisable as human. Devoid of skin in parts which hung from others as bloody flaps draped off the edge of the causeway leading to Cerebro's controls; twisted and broken utterly. Bones exposed in places. The face no longer a face; sporting only unrecognisable features and in places teeth where none should have been; Jean almost threw up. 'Oh god,' were the only words she found to intone and these fell short in strides. Jean took a step back to realize something was behind her.

'God's not in right now, can I take a message?' a voice she knew. Cynical and gruff. Always a touch too loud. Jean did not attempt to respond but instead spun about and thought of her powers, but it was all too sudden. Her head was snapped around by force and something was in her throat. Three things actually. Fingers to be precise.

'Yo-' she had no chance to finish this as her attacker heaved her feet from under her and drove her down against the hard steel floor with great force. It took the wind from her and further than this; her head clapping against the floor shocked her from all sense. So that for a short, numb, time she was not aware of who was kneeling over her with three clawed fingers driven past the second knuckle into her throat while her blood pissed out through, past and over them, at a rate diminished due only to their presence. Her assailant closed over the space between them; straddling her at the waist. Jean did not dare throw him back with her powers lest the violent withdrawal of his fingers kill her. She squirmed back reflexively nonetheless and before she even realize she was doing it he had and a fist crossed her temple hard enough so her ears now rang. For a moment Jean could not see properly as the same hand clamped over her face and obscured her vision. With even the slightest shift of the claws drilled into her neck a shudder would run through her. She tried in desperation to focus on her telepathy and in so doing to invade the mind of her attacker. In response he twisted and pulled on the fingers in her throat and withdrawing one hand leaned over to pummel her. She was struck fourteen times in half as many seconds and now found concentration an impossibility. Jean tried not to choke on the blood poaring back down her throat from her bleeding nose and where her lips had been mauled against her teeth. Something warm slid over her tongue; slick and almost living, and she spat it out. It had been part of her lip.

'Tha-' she started but the hand returned clamping over her face and a thumb fell under her lip and the clawed end now pressed into her gum. Jean's back arched violently as she forgot the danger of struggling in light of the pain as a razor-sharp claw began to dig out the teeth in her lower jaw. A scream escaped her lips over the pain of it, and she thought to cry for help, but here in these lower levels the sound would not travel. No help would come. Jean spent more time now spitting blood than breathing. Both of her hands found his and clasped there about the fingers and wrist in an effort to remove it from her neck or at the very least to cushion them from jerking violently.

'Fuckin' pussy,' a gruff voice sounded in response to her articulations which had been reduced to timed, bloody sobs. Jean was struck to something beyond self-preservation when he spat into her face, and reacted instantly and violently; throwing him off her with every shred of strength that remained to her; focused through her powers. Free of constraint Jean stood up with all the grace of a dying cripple, and wondered how her neck and chest had suddenly become so wet. Finding no answers in the beaten daze of her own thought's she touched a hand there, to her throat, and knew it was over. She had told Kurt to teleport back, and he had brought his attacker with him. She had agreed with Kurt all along. Jean questioned why it had to be like this, but did not have long to dwell on those thoughts before she felt sick with nausea and her head spun violently as she slumped to the floor. Now crouching her attacker watched intently and did not move until Jean's body stopped shuddering violently. He shook what tissue - that from her throat - had been torn loose free from his hand as he stood up, and wondered, idly, what time it was as he paced out of the room.

* * *

'His enemies are mostly dead, he's mean and unforgiving,' half a line of lyrics half listened to. Rogue was seated on the couch in the rec room. The time was no issue to her, in fact she had clear-cut business here. It played on her mind the news Hank and Scott had given her about Kurt before they had left. She had, for obvious reasons, insisting on going with them but had been, at the time, unprepared and as time was of the essence they were presented with only limited options. So here she sat awaiting some word. The music was loud; even through her headphones tinny sounds could be heard in the next room. 'Bolted doors and windows barred, guard dogs prowling in the yard, won't protect you in your bed, nothing will-' Rogue cut this line off jumping nervously as she tossed the headphones from her ears. Certain she had heard something; the pale girl stood up. She heard nothing though and so reached down to retreive the headphones. 'Why headphones-' she had time to lament this act internally; the sentiment vocalized internally as something snatched around her neck in the fashion of a garrotte from behind and, heaved upon with great strength, dragged her bodily over the back of the couch. It could well have been a phone cord, or something else, but it was clearly plastic and now drawn so tight the only thing she gave vent to was a sick chocking gurgle as she found herself immediately struggling to breathe against the redoubling pressure. Rogue kicked up violently and flailed above her in an attempt to catch her attacker with a bare hand as she was quickly dragged into the kitchen. The contract from carpet to cold tile was noticed only for a moment as from the makeshift garrotte she was lifted bodily and before she could turn to meet the aggressor with her newfound balance and freedom a large hand clamped on the back of her head. Her face was driven into the corner of a granite bench. She came up groggy and bleeding from the mouth and was driven home again. This time her legs buckled and she swallowed a tooth. Now Rogue lost the ability to make a distinction in the different impacts as they all blended together into a chorus of sickly thuds; each one left her weaker at the knees and when at last she was let go to stagger free hopelessly Rogue's jaw was irreparably broken, most of her teeth gone. She felt pressure inside her head and it make her nauseas.

'ouy thas,' she could not speak properly. Rogue, seeing double, shakily swept a bare hand towards her attacker; to no avail. The cord was thrust about her neck again and she was jerked backwards violently and the cord affixed somehow, beyond her vision, to something. This left her hanging, literally, too close and too far from the tiles to find good purchase with her feet. Restrained in this fashion Rogue moved to do the only sensible thing and cry for help when her attacker bore down on her with a bottle in hand.

'Shut the fuck up,' he intoned pointedly. Enlarged canines all shown as his lips curled into a grin. One end of the bottle was smashed against the kitchen bench before he drove the neck of it inside her mouth.

'Whad a ouy-' Most of her teeth were now either on the floor or working their way down her oesophagus and so this attempt to speak was cut short by her gagging as the 300ml glass construct found neat entry and the neck was jammed deep into her throat. Rogue's hands lunged foreword but fell against clothed skin only. Suddenly her assailent drew back and she took this time to try and dislodge the bottle; only able to breathe through her nose and unable to articulate anything save a hollow, gurgling and all-together not loud enough noise. Before any progress could be made on this front she saw the man take up a knife. Attempting to intersect it lead to nothing but concise gashes over her wrists and on her palms as it was driven into her twice; between the muscle over her shoulder and her collarbone; twisted and jerked violently while thrust six inches under her skin. Rogue shrieked but the only sound produced through the hollow glass gag lodged deeply in her neck was a sad burbling. The blade drove in again and again until her arms hung limp by her sides; lost to her control. Her eyes squeezed shut here. This whole attack, all of it, it had been so quiet; there would be no help, save by chance, and Rogue clung to that hope. Despite the violence of her sojourn her headphones were still planted in her ears. The music still played. 'Just another victim, kid,' Rogue had no time to muse over the irony as the bottle was driven further into her throat. Her lips were stretched out, drawn around it, and at this point of its girth they split painfully.

Her breathing came shallow as clawed fingers played over the tie of her pyjama pants and cut it at the knot. It was drawn free and though she craned her head weakly to see; it was lifted well from the frame of her vision. All she could see was the stinking, overbearing form of her attacker towering over her. Her arms came several inches from the floor in unison before falling limply. Someone was coming down the stairs. She knew it. She could hear it. It was the sweetest thing she had heard in all her life.

Rogue's attacker heard nothing. He tied several knots in the thin cloth in his hands before placing a bowl in the sink behind her - one of the taps being the thing her garrotte was fixed to - and turning on the tap. There were no footsteps. Rogue's heart sank when she realized it. Wishful thinking; it was a trick of some background noise in the song that now echoed over, and she found herself wishing it was gone. Shaking her head to dislodge them; she felt utterly isolated here; unable to speak or truly move save to shuffle vainly with her feet in an attempt to catch some balance and the headphones weren't budging. Trapped here mute, and deaf; she knew nothing of what was planned by the action of her assailent pouring something down her throat. Something else, clingy and wet, slithered with it and she gagged until her stomach throbbed. More water followed and she spat as much as she could, choking on it violently, hacking it back up. Droplets fell on her chest and over her attacker. More water followed. The process dragged on for what seemed like hours until a face fell to her level.

'-and you'll make some noise,' was all she could draw from what was said through the music. Then she knew the tie from her pants was in her throat; one end in her attackers hand. He tore it out violently and now she simply felt wrong. The next thing Rogue knew he was gone; she had been struck violently and the bottle had smashed. Jagged glass tracked it's way forcefully down her throat as the muscles there convulsed violently both gagging, retching and swallowing compulsively and Rogue slid out of her garrotte to slump foreword and see some of her teeth, glass, and no small amount of blood tinkle, click and drible down against the kitchen tiles. Cold, and shaking violently through the shock of bleeding from her shoulders Rogue was repulsed to see: there amoung the broken glass, on the tiles, things that were certainly important, things that certainly belonged inside her. She would have screamed had she the energy, but maintained only an elongated and pathetic whimpering sound; both loud and heartbreakingly pathetic The knots of cloth; swollen when moist had torn her up mercilessly and wrenched free things; turning parts of her fully inside-out . Rogue slumped down with the knowledge and curled up. She had bled too much. The shock of it would kill her. Shehoped, nevertheless, that someonewould get to her in time.

**End Of Part Three.**

**Note: **This is the last of my 'pre recorded material,' and new updates may take a little more time to complete. Please review. I don't see a point in updating, after all, if people do not review.


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